Never Held Water

Over 2 million Mexican migrants and immigrants to the United States come from the campesino communities within the state of Guanajuato, with almost 250,000 living in Illinois.  These guanajuatenses generally come from rural areas that still practice subsistence-farming to work in the agriculture industry.  In order to continue the traditional subsistence-farming lifestyle, some guanajuatenses migrate for the farming season to the US, and migrants and immigrants together send millions of dollars in remittances to Guanajuato, Mexico.  (http://www.jsri.msu.edu/upload/working-papers/wp47.pdf )

NAFTA continues to add to the plight of the compesinos in Guanajuato and Mexico.  The guanajuatenses that depend on farming for income cannot compete with the large US-funded corporations, primarily agri-businesses, which have moved into the area post-NAFTA.  In addition, NAFTA-related liberalizing reforms in Mexico during the economic crisis of the 1980s have resulted in a reduction in government support of small farmers and low income families.  CONASUPO, the National Company of Popular Substistence that was formed in 1965 with aims to “a) regulating the markets of staples (or popular subsistence crops) through the creation of more efficient and rational relationship between producer and consumer and the elimination of inefficient and dishonest intermediaries, and b) protecting low-income consumers, by granting them access to basic foods, and low-income producers, by allowing them to obtain a livelihood from their production activities”, was dismantled in 1999.  Unfortunately, many benefits for the lower class were not replaced by other government organizations and disappeared along with it (http://reap.ucdavis.edu/research/CONASUPO.pdf).  Sadly, the value of the compesinos’ crops is declining and government assistance has been taken away; subsequently, many are left with the choice between emigration and immigration.

Another issue affecting the guanajuatenese immigration that I am personally aware of, but can’t seem to find much literature discussing, is the depletion of the Independence Aquifer.  The Independence Aquifer is the main source of ground water for Guanajuato.  Since large agri-businesses have been farming so heavily in the region, the aquifer has been depleting at an alarming rate of over a foot per year.  This causes the contaminant levels from natural (volcanic) and anthropomorphic (farming) sources to increase to toxic levels.  In the rural areas of Guanajuato, the people are supplied by wells for water; the government has not developed municipal water supplies.  In one small town that we visited, with a population of less than 100, 6 people had died the previous year of fluoride-related bone cancer. 

The NIU Engineers Without Borders group is currently involved in Guanajuato, Mexico.  In a project being completed with the International Centers for Appropriate Technology and Indigenous Sustainability (www.icatis.org), we are designing point of use (POU) water filtration systems that remove some regional contaminants. 

Campesinos and their families told us about how the younger generations are leaving the communities to find greater opportunities in the cities or because they are worried about their health.  Subsequently, the older citizens are left behind and the communities are dying off.  Many are worried about the loss of their land, their values, and their traditions. 

I imagine that not many of my classmates have thought about water and how it can affect immigration.  Even if NAFTA was revoked tomorrow and the Mexican government started pumping millions of pesos into reestablishing and supporting its lower classes, without the government also finding a way to supply healthy water, the rural classes will have to move anyway. 

(I took the picture of this article myself while traveling in Guanajuato.)